Hawryluk The Sliding Scale of Celebrity Authorship Central Queensland University (CQ University) Lynda Hawryluk The sliding scale of celebrity authorship: Three writers face their adoring (and otherwise) public with very different results Abstract: This paper examines three authors’ lives in relation to their response to their status as ‘star authors’ (Moran, 2000). All three experienced a meteoric rise to fame as a result of a single work of thinly-veiled if not autobiographical fiction, with this work being widely acclaimed, translated into other languages and perhaps unsurprisingly in the current celebrity obsessed culture, Hollywood films. How these authors negotiated their fame and the subsequent praise and criticism that followed, is the focus of this paper. The three authors are Elizabeth Gilbert, Bret Easton Ellis and Harper Lee. Biographical Note: Lynda Hawryluk is a Lecturer in Literary and Cultural Studies at CQUniversity. She teaches undergraduate creative writing subjects and supervises MLitt students. Keywords: celebrity—star authors—memoir—margins—mainstreams th Margins and Mainstreams: Refereed conference papers of the 14 Annual AAWP Conference, 2009 1 Hawryluk The Sliding Scale of Celebrity Authorship ‘If I bitch about being recognised in airports, put a sock in my mouth. The book benefited my life at every level.’ Elizabeth Gilbert (Marshall, 2009) In the galaxy of what Joe Moran termed ‘star authors’ (2000) one of the brightest current stars is Elizabeth Gilbert, author of best-selling memoir Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia (2006). Eat, Pray, Love as it is more commonly known, transformed Gilbert from an award-winning but little-known journalist and non-fiction writer into a star author in a matter of months after its debut in February 2006, and remains on the New York Times Bestseller list 137 weeks later (New York Times, 2009). It has been translated into 30 languages and there are over 7 million copies in print (Montgomery, 2009). Gilbert interacts with her readers via her personal website, with television appearances and, most importantly, through meeting her reading public readily and patiently (Montgomery, 2009). Her humorous, insightful talk at the 2009 TED (Technology, Education, Design) conference has been rated one of the most popular of all time by the millions of subscribers to that website. Gilbert typifies the 21st century wordsmith: accessible and unabashedly revealing herself in print and online. However, the manner in which Gilbert has both responded to and embraced her success has been the subject of both praise and criticism. From the date of the publication of Eat, Pray, Love, many book critics have been divided in their opinions of the author and her work. Her book has for instance been described as ‘narcissistic New Age reading’ (Callahan, 2007) but others have found the author to be ‘a feminist icon’ (Hays, 2009). Gilbert’s frankness about her writing and life seemingly allow the same kind of honesty in her reviews; she is described as ‘self-congratulatory and self- absorbed’ and ‘funny, self-deprecating, fiercely intelligent’ in the same review (Leibovich, 2006). Regardless of opinions of the book itself, one thing is undeniable: Elizabeth Gilbert is cognisant of her audience, and gives them what they want; more of the kind of insightful self-reflection that propelled her novel to the top of the bestseller lists. Her interviews provide self-effacing glimpses into her life, her self- doubt and her ongoing ‘spiritual journey’ (Oprah.com, 2009). Gilbert twice accepted invitations to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show (Montgomery, 2009), securing her place in the pantheon of writers lauded by the influential talk show host. Perhaps she was forewarned by the experience of Jonathan Franzen, who after complaining bitterly to several interviewers about his selection on Oprah’s Book Club, was quietly uninvited to the planned filmed dinner celebrating his book and then tried without success to get re-invited after reconsidering (Zeitchik, 2001). Franzen’s The Corrections won the National Book Award, but lost the opportunity to bask in the reflected glory of what is known as ‘The Oprah Effect’ (Konchar-Farr, 2004). Winfrey’s influence on American readers is well-documented with Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon garnering an additional 40,000 sales after the book was featured in her 1996 Book Club list. This was despite the novel’s age: it was first published in 1977 and had sold less than 2,000 copies in the year before its inclusion on Oprah’s list (Furman, 2003). So too, with Eat, Pray, Love. While not a Book Club selection (Marshall, 2009) Winfrey championed both the author and message of Eat, Pray Love enthusiastically, leading to the creation of an Eat, Pray, th Margins and Mainstreams: Refereed conference papers of the 14 Annual AAWP Conference, 2009 2 Hawryluk The Sliding Scale of Celebrity Authorship Love: Spiritual Journeys section within the popular talk show hosts’ website (Oprah.com, 2009). This ensures ongoing interest and publicity for the book and its author. And then there’s the TED talk. Gilbert’s 2009 TED talk ‘on nurturing creativity’, delivered at the invitation-only Technology, Entertainment, Design conference in California, has been rated as one of the Most Favourited All-Time on a website which features talks by such luminaries as Jane Goodall, Oliver Sacks, Richard Dawkins and Al Gore (TED, 2009). In it, Elizabeth Gilbert speaks about the rigours of writing, and the origins of creativity. She also candidly discusses the difficulty of having published an enormously popular book and especially the self-doubt plaguing her attempts to write a subsequent book. Indeed, she acknowledges that ‘everywhere I go now, people treat me like I’m doomed’ (Gilbert, 2009). Gilbert’s candour is matched by her intelligence, wit and ability to move beyond the criticism that finds Eat, Pray, Love self-obsessed: ‘like travelling the world with a lovely and intelligent girlfriend who can’t stop talking about herself’ (Potts, 08). She also wryly acknowledges early in this seemingly unscripted lecture that ‘it’s exceedingly likely that my greatest success is behind me’ (2009). With the cinematic version of Eat, Pray, Love due for release next year (Yessis, 2009), it is unlikely that the book or Gilbert will fall from the public eye, but Gilbert is being realistic: subsequent success of this degree may be difficult to achieve. This kind of bold honesty gains Gilbert both admiration and disparagement, criticism she has responded to frankly in interviews (Memmott, 2008), all the while maintaining her open-book policy on her private life in others (Marshall, 2009). In an article describing Gilbert’s latest venture, a home wares emporium she established with her husband, Gilbert is described riding her bike through her small New Jersey town and helpfully assisting lost devotees of her novel find the store, and it would appear, her (Nicholson Webber, 2008). Gilbert’s accessibility mirrors Moran’s suggestion that star authors ‘actively negotiate their own celebrity rather than having it simply imposed on them’ (p.10), placing her at the opposite end of the star author spectrum from Harper Lee. Lee, much like Gilbert, found fame with a novel that resonated with readers, but struggled with and eventually abandoned subsequent creative output. This is a struggle Gilbert addresses eloquently in her TED talk, but about which Lee refuses to be drawn, becoming instead somewhat of a recluse, reduced to living on the margins of celebrity authorship. This has led to much speculation about the lack of later work and about the author herself. ‘I am still alive, although very quiet’ Harper Lee (Tabor, 1995) Nelle Harper Lee’s journey as a star author has been an awkward and short-lived one at best. Her only novel To Kill a Mockingbird was released to favourable reviews in 1960, became an overnight sensation, received the Pulitzer Prize the year after, and remained on the bestseller lists for 88 weeks (NEA Big Read, 2006-2009). In 1962 the novel was made into a film Lee herself described as ‘one of the best translations of a book to film ever made’ (Bellafante, 2006) and which is regarded as ‘so true to its th Margins and Mainstreams: Refereed conference papers of the 14 Annual AAWP Conference, 2009 3 Hawryluk The Sliding Scale of Celebrity Authorship namesake that the two have merged in the public mind’ (Mifflin, 2006). The film won three of the eight Oscars it was nominated for. Shortly thereafter, Lee stopped giving interviews, retreated from public life and has remained there ever since. Despite constant requests, she has never granted any interviews about To Kill a Mockingbird, her life or subsequent writing projects. Lee has steadfastly maintained a steady silence, even in the face of exploitation and occasionally cruel speculation about the novel, its origins and her personal life. Her few public comments have been delivered via her agent and then in the most minimal way. This mirrors the direct approach taken by the author in some of her last known public statements. When asked in 1962 if success would change Harper Lee, Lee replied ‘She’s too old.’ The interviewer pressed on: ‘How do you feel about your second novel?’:‘I’m scared’ she replied. (Maslin, 2006) Lee’s reluctance to engage with the press and an adoring public may be well-founded: the book’s success was somewhat marred, but not inhibited, by its placement on banned lists in the US, due to what some still regard as questionable content. At the time, Lee responded to the news that school boards were holding hearings to determine whether To Kill a Mockingbird should be included in the curriculum by sending ten dollars to a newspaper, explaining the donation was for the enrolment of ‘the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice’ (NY Times, 1966).